May 10, 2017

Noli mi tangere: A mini-syllabus for writing poetry of resistance.

Noli me tangere is the Latin version of a phrase spoken, according to John 20:17, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection. A loose translation into English would be "don't tread on me" or "don't touch me."

In a conversation with Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde expressed the need to write those poems that lay the world bare, poems that expose the incongruence between our ideals and manufactured realities:

...that to put myself on the line to do what had to be done at any place and time was so difficult, yet absolutely crucial, and not to do so was the most awful death. And putting yourself on the line is like killing a piece of yourself, in the sense that you have to kill, end, destroy something familiar and dependable, so that something new can come, in ourselves, in our world. And that sense of writing at the edge, out of urgency, not because you choose it but because you have to, that sense of survival — that’s what the poem is out of, as well as the pain… Once you live any piece of your vision it opens you to a constant onslaught. Of necessities, of horrors, but of wonders too, of possibilities.

I keep these words in the front of my writing notebook as a benchmark. No syllabus in writing poetry of resistance would be complete without these two incredible poets that changed the stakes of the game. And no poetry of resistance can avoid engaging the extent to which consumerism modifies our tastes, preferences, socialization, and spiritual anomie. The poet must give up the mass audience for the single human heart. In Adrienne's words:

For a mass audience in the United States is not an audience for a collectively generated idea, welded together by the power of that idea and by common debates about it. Mass audiences are created by promotion, by the marketing of excitements that take the place of ideas, of real collective debate, vision, or catharsis; serve only to isolate us in the littleness of our own lives—we become incoherent to each other.

In writing against, we are often writing into a new space-- into a possible world that must be articulated. The poem is a speech act that creates this world. In so doing, it offers hope.

Alternately, it offers evidence that validates the occurrence and existence of the unspeakable. Carolyn Forché describes this "poetry of witness" in her seminal article, "Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness," American Poetry Review:

By situating poetry in this social space, we can avoid some of our residual prejudices. A poem that calls us from the other side of a situation of extremity cannot be judged by simplistic notions of "accuracy" or "truth to life." It will have to be judged, as Ludwig Wittgenstein said of confession, by its consequences, not by our ability to verify its truth. In fact, the poem might be our only evidence that an event has occurred: it exists for us as the sole trace of an occurrence. As such, there is nothing for us to base the poem on, no independent account that will tell us whether or not we can see a given text as being "objectively" true. Poem as trace, poem as evidence.

13. Zbigniew Herbert, "The Wall," a prose poem about the divisions of closed societies

WRITING PROMPTS TO WRITE AGAINST AND THROUGH

Rub your antlers against these words and see what sloughs off. See what remains on the fence.

It's about the careful construction of two central narratives: false actualization and authentic shame... it reflects our unrequited yearning for the authentic. Americans are drowning in a cesspool of fake emotion, nearly all of it aimed at getting us to buy junk. (Steve Almond's critique of reality TV)

When you realize you contain multitudes, try not to be too disappointed. (Mark Yakich on poetic voice and the social construction of reality)

Because you did not wrestle with your angel. Because you dare to live with G-d. Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp. (Leonard Cohen addressing the nation-state from platform of poet as prophet)

The alter ego comes from a Latin phrase meaning "other I." Writer becoming another person through voice and imaginative identification. Not a mask but a persona.

But now, if one truly wanted to feel part of the changing world, was it necessary to bring back the obscene words, to say: I want to screw, fuck me this way and that way. (Elena Ferrante in Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay)